A Better Way to Pick the President

We watched Lewis Black on HBO on demand last night. Among other amusing observations, he had a suggestion for a better way to select the president than the one we use now. The winner of American Idol throws a dart at a map. A monkey is flown to the location represented on the map where the dart ended up. The monkey parachutes to the ground, and the first person he touches is the new president.

There has got to be a better way to pick presidents. That we could have ended up with two terms of the idiot king or that there is even a remote chance that Rudy Giuliani could become president are manifestations of a profoundly flawed system.

Black’s idea should be given a try. His approach takes ambition out of the picture. Anyone who wants to be president is probably not qualified and presents a danger to the Republic. Such men are generally wanting in character and principles other than self aggrandizement. Accordingly, the selection process should be designed so that self selected candidates are not favored over others. The field of GOP candidates with the exception of Ron Paul all manifested their unfitness for the office in their “debates” each trying to “outfascist” the others. The Democrats are not as obviously repulsive but, except for Mike Gravel, are an unsatisfying lot. Sadly, the system is rigged so that the relatively happy choice of Paul versus Gravel could never be presented to us.

In addition to random selection, more qualifications and disqualifying factors should be considered so that the random selectee will be less likely to be Bushlike or Giulianiesque. For example, the selectee’s name can’t end in the letter “i”. I propose that anyone who has spent more than 25% of his career on any government payroll or as a government contractor or on the government dole should be disqualified. Anyone who has ever expressed any interest in becoming president would be disqualified. Anyone who travels to the vicinity where the monkey is slated to land is disqualified unless it is part of his ordinary routine. If you don’t flee from the monkey, you are disqualified

This system has everything. It’s got public participation via the American Idol balloting. I see a series of dart tosses at progressively more detailed maps until you get down to a neighborhood, but this location will not be revealed until the monkey has been thrown off the plane. The whole world will watch the video from the monkey-cam as the simian seeks out the next president of the US. Finally, the selectee will be vetted for disqualifications, and if need be the whole thing will be done over until a qualified individual is tagged by the monkey.